Issue date: 3/3/05 Section: TruLife

Media Credit: Chris Waller Jeff Osborn, associate professor of biology, Lloyd Pfleugar, associate professor of religion, senior Kyle Harms, teaching and learning technology specialist Sherry Dare, and director of ITS client services Chad Tatro talk about Macintosh Technology.

Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World," said "technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards."

With regards to disease, war and pollution, he couldn't have been more precise. Regarding education, though, he couldn't have been further from the truth.

Truman's Teaching/Learning Technology Roundtable (TLTR) had its first TruTech Challenge on Feb. 16. The main goal of the competition was to use technology to advance some aspect of education.

The TLTR wanted to add another component to the third annual Tech Fair, said Chad Mohler, assistant professor of philosophy and religion and TLTR co-chair.

"The TLTR is always interested in finding ways of publicizing effective or innovative uses of technology in education," he said. "[The TruTech Challenge] was a natural outgrowth from the Tech Fair."

Entrants in the TruTech Challenge wrote a 250- to 1,000-word description of their project. During the Technology Fair, the entrants presented their projects to the TLTR committee.

The best project in the individual student, student group or class division and the best in the faculty/staff division each won Dell X50v PDAs. The runners-up in each group also won prizes.

Jon Beck, associate professor of computer science, and his Computer Science Language Lab students won the individual student, student group or class division. The project, "Adding Graphics to a Free Statistics Package," however, wasn't designed specifically for the TruTech Challenge.

"I didn't think of [submitting the project] until later," Beck said. "But in looking at the TLTR's information about the TruTech Challenge, it occurred to me that this thing we've done in the class just fit really well."

Scott Thatcher, assistant professor of mathematics, approached Beck earlier in the year about designing a graphics program to complement a free statistics program that didn't have a graphics engine. Because the program was free, the source code for the program was available, meaning Beck and his class accomplished the task.

Beck said Thatcher will review the finished software this summer and decide if he will use it in his classes next fall.

Because Beck likes to implement real-world assignments into his class, this project appeared to be the perfect opportunity, he said.

"If you're a [computer science] major and you get hired to work at a software development company, you never get a chance to write your own program from scratch," Beck said. "Instead, you are dumped in the middle of an on-going project. The big benefit to the students is that it gave them a real-world experience as opposed to the artificial, textbook-type projects that they normally get in computer science courses."

Beck plans to participate in the TruTech Challenge again sometime in the future.

"I don't have a clue right now what a project would be next fall, but I would certainly hope that I could have something that would be appropriate [for another TruTech Challenge]," he said.

Fred Shaffer, professor of psychology and winner of the faculty/staff division, developed his project, "Biofeedback Tutor," three years ago to provide an up-to-date electronic textbook in a specialized subject area.

"This is not a course that is taught widely on college campuses," he said. "We are probably one of the few campuses where biofeedback is covered in a course. Therefore, we didn't have a lot of choice about textbooks to adopt."

"Biofeedback Tutor" allows students to see animations, movie segments and color photographs - aspects many textbooks are unable to offer, Shaffer said.

Also included in the electronic textbook are links to online quizzes.

"You end the unit and then you click on the link and then you can do a 10-question multiple-choice test over what you just studied," Shaffer said.

Shaffer felt "Biofeedback Tutor" was an excellent addition to the TruTech Challenge.

"The TruTech Challenge seemed to be about using technology to help students learn," he said. "This project involved so many different types of technology that it seemed to be what they were interested in."

Despite creating the "Biofeedback Tutor," Shaffer prefers print textbooks and thinks the standard print textbooks will be improved.

"I believe that we'll see better multimedia support for print textbooks," he said. "Students still prefer print [textbooks]. If there was a print textbook that had the content that 'Biofeedback Tutor' has, I would've adopted it in a second regardless of who wrote it."

Shaffer said everyone who participated in the TruTech Challenge were the real winners.

"To just see people excited about technology and demonstrating it for those who can learn from it, it's extremely neat," Shaffer said.

Not all the credit should be given to technology, however.

"Technology is cool, but it can never take the place of good teaching," he said.

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